The Real Morgiah
by joyofthejoui
Summary: A Late Third Era Thalmor scholar pens an exposé of the Dunmer Princess Morgiah, wife of Firsthold's ruler. (Apocrypha written for r/teslore.)


The sensationalist title does no justice to the text itself. In fact, in its original version, the text had no title. It was simply a sober, thoughtful letter by a sober, thoughtful scholar. Ceryintar was a long-serving member of the Thalmor Council in the Late Third Era. During most of his tenure on the Council, the Thalmor was a body of scholars with some moral and intellectual influence on Altmer society, but little political power. In the final decades of his life, the Thalmor's influence was growing, but Ceryintar did not live to see their eventual triumph. He and most of his family perished in the Oblivion Crisis. His daughter Ilantuwe, however, married into the Kinship of Shimmerene, and many of his writings are preserved in that family's private archives.

Seventeen years after Ceryintar's death, heavily-edited copies of his private letter, now titled _The Real Morgiah_, were posted as handbills throughout the city of Firsthold. The guards hurriedly pulled them down; the handbills were replaced during the night, and thus began a fruitless twelve-year long struggle between Firsthold guards and Thalmor provocateurs. _The Real Morgiah_ was not the only handbill to be posted on Firsthold walls, but it was a favourite of these activists.

The full text of Ceryintar's letter is reproduced here. The letter was written in 3E 421, at which time Morgiah's family had been expelled from Wayrest, but Helseth had yet to gain the throne of Mournhold. Morgiah was at the time two months pregnant with her first child, but Ceryintar would have not known this. However, it is speculated that Lady Gialene, Reman's concubine, did have knowledge of the pregnancy, and it was a breaking point for her in planning the Firsthold Revolt, which occurred a month after this letter was written.

The threat of the Firsthold Revolt, therefore, is the immediate context of the original letter. Ceryintar's friend Elanye, a scholar in Skywatch, wanted to know if the Thalmor would support Lady Gialene. Ceryintar answered in the negative, but apparently, no one felt any compunction to warn Reman of the plot.

In my presentation of the text, the bolded sections make up the version published as the later Firsthold handbills. Some of the omissions are practical; Lady Gialene was long gone from Firsthold when the handbills were posted. Others, such as the comments on Morgiah and Dunmer religion, were most likely omitted because they clear her of accusations.

* * *

**Seventeenth of Last Seed, 3E 421**

**Fivefold Venerations upon you, my Dear Friend,**

**I promised you a reply nearly a year ago. But as I told you then, I did not wish to rush to judgment. I have consulted with many since then, including several knowledgeable informants from High Rock and Morrowind. Their responses have convinced me that by taking Morgiah as wife, Reman Karoodil has brought a great evil upon us.**

Your greatest fear was that Lady Morgiah might establish Dunmer apostasies within Firsthold. I can at least reassure you on that heading. I do not think it very likely. **Lady Morgiah's family values expedience in religion over fidelity, and Morgiah has lived most of her life among Bretons. During their time in Wayrest's court, her family attempted to adjust themselves to High Rock in everything including religion. Banished from Wayrest, Helseth is said to be currently flirting with both the Imperial Cult and the Tribunal in Mournhold. **Here in Summerset, Morgiah has shown the same spirit of adaptation, changing out the names of her worshiped Eight as instructed by the Aldarchs. There is no reason to suspect her attachment to Breton, Imperial, or Dunmer forms of religion. She adequately performs the rites required of the High Kinlord's consort.

She is not notably devout, but I personally have no issue with that. There is something distasteful about deeply religious nobles. They lack the judgment to see their proper position in our society and to stay in it.

Speaking of such devout nobles, you asked whether we should support Lady Gialene in her current efforts to unseat Morgiah. No, a thousand times, no. The lady is from a very distinguished bloodline. She is indeed a model of charity, very popular with the common folk of Firsthold. But the Thalmor cannot encourage this immoral jockeying for power, in which even High Kinlords and Kinladies send their children into concubinage. The great courts of Summerset are cesspits, with mer trading in gold and flesh for the favour of Lords, Ladies, and Imperial lackeys. You know that I have a daughter of marriageable age and despite my connections to a certain great house, I would _never_ allow her to serve as a court lady. The risks to both her reputation and character are too great.

If a concubine of a High Kinlord can upset his marriage and take over his wife's place, even such a wife as Morgiah, we would be placing the realm at the mercy of unscrupulous plotters, the common mob, and bands of religious fanatics.

**The best resolution for Firsthold's court would be if High Kinlord Reman could be persuaded to put aside Lady Morgiah, recognizing the immorality of the relationship. Then he could remarry more appropriately, **to someone other than Lady Gialene, **and sire better heirs. However, he will not be persuaded. Morgiah has her claws into him deeper than you could imagine.**

**Why would a Lord of Summerset take as his bride a Dunmer princess of low repute? The choice confounded us all, but I have discovered the answer.** According to a trusted informant, **It was not for love. At least not for love of Morgiah.**

**You know that Reman lost the only son of his first marriage. The young mer was only in his twenties, so Reman's grief was very understandable. However, it progressed to madness. He refused to be reconciled to the loss. The Firsthold court covered up some of his eccentric behaviour in the wake of his son's death, but I have it on good authority that he did not fully participate in the proper funerary rites. He ignored his duty to remarry and sire a new heir, instead plunging himself into the study of necromancy.**

**Yes. Necromancy. Now you know why I hesitated to answer your inquiry. I had to be sure of my accusations. Reman stuck mostly to book learning, being either too untalented or too fearful to try his own hand at necromancy. He turned his focus at last from studying necromancy to searching for a powerful necromancer with no moral compunctions. His search led him at last to the Iliac Bay, following the rumours that the King of Worms, Mannimarco himself, could be found there.**

**But he lacked the knowledge and experience to seek out and make a contract with Mannimarco. He turned instead to intermediaries, and he found one in Princess Morgiah of Wayrest. Morgiah had a black reputation in Wayrest as a sorceress who knew the secrets of most of High Rock and Hammerfell. She did indeed have contact with the King of Worms.**

**I do not know how Morgiah made her contract with Mannimarco, or what Mannimarco achieved for the grieving Reman. I can only confirm that Reman promised to marry Morgiah if she could recruit Mannimarco's help. An agent of the Blades ill-advisedly carried a letter from Morgiah to Mannimarco, and the result pleased Reman enough to go through with his marriage to Morgiah.**

**So you see, Reman Karoodil cannot back out of this marriage, for it is truly a contract under the King of Worms, who has only grown more powerful since. We do not know what he or Morgiah promised Mannimarco in return for his help, or what Mannimarco could have done to the soul of Reman's dead son.**

**Morgiah has yet to bear children, but we can assume her children by Reman will most likely have dark skin, red eyes, and all the other cursed traits of her people.** Already, her enemies in Firsthold are clamouring that such children would not be of the blood of our Aldmer ancestors, and therefore undeserving of their father's throne. I have some reservations about that line of argument. (In my darkest moments I fear that none of us today are truly of the blood of the Aldmer, that we have all fallen too far from our ancestors' glory. )

The Dunmer, doubly cursed though they may be, are certainly our kin, and have, in fact, jealously guarded their bloodlines against impurities. They followed the false promises of Daedra, but resolutely opposed Molag Bal's threat to upset their bloodlines. How then can we say that they are not of the blood of the Aldmer? There is more mannish blood among the Bosmer and we have always welcomed them as our brethren within the past Dominions.

Do not mistake me here. **The Dunmer's skin and eyes are marks of their double perfidy, against both Aedra and Daedra, and the heirs of a High Kinlord should never bear these marks**. But I do not believe that excluding the Dunmer from a future reconciliation is a wise direction for the Thalmor. Our predecessors in the First Dominion publicly invited the Dunmer to repent of their iniquities and submit to the guidance of the Thalmor. We must uphold that invitation; one day they may actually take it.

**Morgiah's bloodline is also tainted by Nord ancestry, courtesy of her father, Symmachus, a Mournhold peasant turned general of Tiber Septim. (If indeed Symmachus was the lady's father; the promiscuity of Morgiah's mother is truly legendary.)** If I ever needed to publicly challenge Morgiah and her future children's bloodline, I would hammer in this point, sidestepping a debate over whether the Dunmer are true Aldmer descendants.

But as you have seen, the blood purity of Morgiah's children is not our most pressing concern. **I really cannot grieve that the bloodline of Reman Karoodil may be tainted by Dunmer blood. The craven foolishness shown by the Firsthold Kinship is not testament to their lineage's purity but to the idiocy of certain Aednavorith scholars who privileged ear shape over wisdom or strength of character. The better members of that family died in the Siege of Alinor, leaving a degenerate cousin to lick Tiber Septim's boots and rename himself Reman Karoodil: an absurd tribute to the Second Empire's founder. It pleased Septim at any rate. Many families who co-operated with Tiber Septim have lately begun to distance themselves from that legacy. But the continued use of names such as Reman and Alessia in the Firsthold Kinship demonstrates their complete lack of remorse.**

**What can we do about Morgiah and her witless husband? Nothing at the moment. While the Septims rule our fair Isles, we of the Thalmor can only advise, never lead. Morgiah has strong ties to the Empire; so does her husband. We cannot even denounce them, lest we are silenced forever.**

**I still have hope for our future. I see hope in the bright faces of my eager students, both noble and common folk, who submit themselves completely to my instruction. We may not have the power to act, but if we can teach our younger generation the proper ways, _they_ will act.**

**May you ever hold fast to the knowledge we were granted,**

**Ceryintar**

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Another installment of Thalmor Apocrypha, inspired above all by the quest Morgiah's Wedding in Daggerfall, and the lorebook _The Firsthold Revolt_, which tells the story of Morgiah and Gialene's clash. But there are a lot of other inspirations in here. Ceryintar's caveats about the Dunmer refer back to _Aicantar of Shimmerene Answers Your Questions_ and _The House of Troubles_. His grumpiness over Aednavorith scholars is inspired by the type of analysis we see in_ Five-Fold Felicitations_! (All these texts can be found on the UESP website.)

In the terms of my other Thalmor apocrypha, Ceryintar is the tutor to the young heirs of Shimmerene mentioned in Valiitha Direnni's reports to the Blades (Check profile for that ongoing fic.). And his informant on Morgiah's actions in High Rock is Blades/Thalmor triple agent Valiitha Direnni herself. In this universe, Ceryintar is also Elenwen's maternal grandfather.

Also, hat tip to **rusty_shakalford** who asked a while ago whether there'd be a "Real Morgiah" to go along with The Real Helseth, another political attack pamphlet (which you can find on my profile).


End file.
